Anyone who has read our book or magazine is well aware of our penchant for abandoned places, especially large-scale institutions like asylums and hospitals. These enormous forlorn facilities seem to speak to us with voices of another time. Given their history, it’s not hard to image that those voices might just be coming from the thousands of souls who once suffered within the now crumbling walls of such melancholy edifices. One such sorrowful place is the Glenn Dale Hospital in Maryland.
The Glenn Dale Hospital is a sprawling abandoned complex that sits on 216 acres of Maryland’s Prince Georges County. It was originally built as a tuberculosis hospital with two main buildings––one for adults and one for children––plus many smaller outlying facilities. After tuberculosis epidemics were largely curbed, the complex remained in operation as a general hospital. Glenn Dale opened its doors in 1934 and remained in operation for roughly fifty years, finally closing down for good in 1982 due to questions of structural integrity and the presence of large amounts of asbestos. Today the hospital’s many buildings sit crumbling and decaying, full of furniture and equipment left over from the facility’s years of operation. Among the still standing buildings are the original children’s hospital, the massive main adult hospital, as well as laundry buildings, guard buildings, and nurses’ quarters. Many of the buildings are connected by underground tunnels that were used to transport patients and materials over the vast complex without having to go outside, especially during the cold winter months.
The buildings have been vandalized heavily in the two decades they have been abandoned. Many of these vandals are thrill-seekers who have explored Glenn Dale after hearing the dozens of legends surrounding the buildings.
One of the most enduring rumors about Glenn Dale is that during its later years it was used as a hospital to house the criminally insane. Stories are told that upon the hospital’s closing, some of these deranged lunatics were simply released onto the streets. With no family to speak of and no idea of where to go, they found their way back inside the abandoned buildings and now call them home. In the darkest recesses of these ramshackle structures reside some truly insane individuals––or so the stories say.
Another tale claims that the hospital had to be abandoned due to an overwhelming epidemic of tuberculosis that killed most of the patients and staff of the hospital and infected the very building itself. Explorers should be careful, the story says, as touching any of the remnants of the building’s past could expose them to this deadly disease. While this is untrue, it is once again worth mentioning that the buildings are in fact overrun with asbestos and do pose a threat to the health of adventurous visitors.
Many late night explorers to Glenn Dale report hearing strange noises and even seeing ghosts. Many say that the spirits of those patients who died while residents of the hospital remain today, haunting the halls of the now abandoned buildings. Not surprisingly, many people report experiencing odd occurrences in the vicinity of the morgue, located in the bowels of the main adult hospital building.
Glenn Dale hospital is a no trespassing area regularly patrolled by Prince Georges County police as well as park police that live in a facility on the grounds.
I'd like to share the story of when my friend and I visited the Glenn Dale Hospital in Maryland. It's this beautiful abandoned hospital containing one huge main hospital and various smaller (but still very large) wards and nurse’s quarters. I forced my friend to take me there for a photo shoot. He wasn't to keen on getting in trouble with the police and therefore wouldn't let me get out of the car.
Eventually I talked him into walking up a small path towards the main hospital building, which was lacking a warning sign. And wouldn't ya know it? A cop showed up. While we were explaining our reasons for being there, my friend noticed that the back of his hand had been bitten open and was bleeding freely. He had no memory of this at all. The cop was pretty nice and explained that the building we were going to wasn't haunted, but the children’s ward on the other side of the road was.
So he took us through the gates and into the belly of the beast. He drove us through the small pathways that darted this way and that and in the middle of one was a large pile of junk. He brought us to a much smaller building and parked underneath the arch that connected two buildings. He motioned for us to get out and brought us to a darkened doorway and began to tell the story. Eventually he brought out a high-powered flashlight to take us inside, but the bulb burnt out as soon as the beam hit the doorway. He would’ve let us take some calendars and junk but seeing as the light decided to die, we couldn't. He still let us go a little ways inside, telling us "go ahead, you first.” There was a small door to my right about 20 feet into a dark hallway when something fell off a shelf in the room behind the door.
That was too much. I turned around to leave when I caught sight of a large open doorway. I leaned in and saw steps, a set going up and a set going down. I was considering going upstairs when I saw something run by at the landing of the basement. I was out of there in an instant. After chatting with the policeman for a bit he told us a story of another officer who was checking out the area alone. Someone across the street heard gunshots and called it in. When backup arrived, they found the officer from before standing in the middle of the area, not moving, just staring straight ahead and not saying a word. He had shot all of his rounds at something they never found.
–Zev
I grew up in Bowie, MD. Just down the road from Bowie there’s an old hospital referred to as Glenn Dale Hospital. It’s an old abandoned hospital that used to be owned by the District of Columbia. I’ve heard that it was a tuberculosis center and later became an insane asylum as TB cases became uncommon. Supposedly in the 70's they just shut the hospital down. If you go inside you can still find medical files and equipment like the workers were rushed out of there. There are tunnels under the buildings. Prince Georges county owns the land now and have an on site security guard to keep the kids from wondering on the property. Most of the buildings are falling down but nothing is being done to develop the land.
–Shane Nordvik
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To read more about the great abandoned places throughout America check out our new book, Weird US, which is now available nationally at all Barnes and Noble and B. Dalton stores.
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